So I found an Artesian Bread recipe on Mother Earth News and decided to give it a try, this was a few months ago. I really did not believe all they said about how you can make it and just leave it in your fridge for a couple of weeks, using a little for a loaf when you want one, but I thought, what the heck it is worth the try.
I started with the smaller recipe and made one loaf, storing the rest. I worked beautifully. I did not have a pizza stone or cornmeal, but figured I would use my silpat cookie sheet and that would work and it did.
Since then I have been experimenting with it for you and I. I wanted to figure out what all we can do with it. I also have made the large recipe twice. I wanted this last one to go the full two weeks. It still works just as well, just makes it into a sourdough bread.
Here are all the different pics from what we have done and at the end I will give you the recipe. These guys have a book out, so I want to give credit where it is due, so I will list that too. I have not read the book and don’t know if they used the master dough to make all of these things, but I did and I am LOVING it!
Okay, so the first time I did the big batch, it got away from me and over flowed everywhere and then when I stored it in a plastic bowl in the fridge, it escaped the bowl there too. Make sure you put it in two bowls to rise if you are doing the 13 cups of flour batch.
I use my mixer and it makes even short work of 13 cups of flour believe it or not. Here is the Kitchen Aide I own. It saves me a whole lot of time. You just slowly add the ingredients and it will mix it for you with the dough hook. My guy and kids got it for me a few years ago. I hardly had a chance to use it and now I am giving it a real work out! Above is the first thing I made with the dough, just two normal loaves of bread. I recomend you make at least one loaf after the first rise, I say that because it is will rise again a little even in your cold fridge. You don't want to have to clean sticky wet dough all over your fridge like I did. It was not fun. See, I can make the dumb moves for you!
Here is my next move:
Pizza! It was yummy. We made about three this night because we had company and Mark was sure that there was not going to be enough for him. The pizza was easy. Flour your space you are going to roll on, look at your two fists put together and grab out a portion the same size from your bowl. It will be wet and sticky. This is a wet dough. Let rest on the floured counter for 10 minutes before rolling out, this will make it so the dough will roll better and thinner. It takes some practice, just remember to add flour to the top and bottom of the dough while rolling, this will go for the next recipe too. Once rolled into a square (or circle if you have a pizza stone or pan), tranfer to a lightly oiled or cornmealed cookie sheet or to a silpat cookie sheet. Top with your favs! For me, I make my own sauce because it is so easy. Here is my quick recipe:
1 can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
taste and adjust
add to the top of dough in a thin layer, add pizza cheese, and toppings. Mine had pepperoni, olives and mushrooms. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees and check in 15. It is done when bottom is golden brown and top is bubbly and melted.
I just realized this is getting huge and it is getting later in the day. I will finish the post tomorrow, with the other two recipes I used for the dough so far. Here is the recipe in case you want to give it a try tonight.
Mixing and Storing the Dough
1. Heat the water to just a little warmer than body temperature (about 100 degrees Fahrenheit).
2. Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5-quart bowl or, preferably, in a resealable, lidded container (not airtight — use container with gasket or lift a corner). Don’t worry about getting it all to dissolve.
3. Mix in the flour by gently scooping it up, then leveling the top of the measuring cup with a knife; don’t pat down. Mix with a wooden spoon, a high-capacity food processor with dough attachment, or a heavy-duty stand mixer with dough hook, until uniformly moist. If hand-mixing becomes too difficult, use very wet hands to press it together. Don’t knead! This step is done in a matter of minutes, and yields a wet dough loose enough to conform to the container.
4. Cover loosely. Do not use screw-topped jars, which could explode from trapped gases. Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse (or at least flatten on top), approximately two hours, depending on temperature. Longer rising times, up to about five hours, will not harm the result. You can use a portion of the dough any time after this period. Refrigerated wet dough is less sticky and easier to work with than room-temperature dough. We recommend refrigerating the dough at least three hours before shaping a loaf. And relax! You don’t need to monitor doubling or tripling of volume as in traditional recipes.
5. Prepare a pizza peel by sprinkling it liberally with cornmeal to prevent the loaf from sticking to it when you slide it into the oven.
Sprinkle the surface of the dough with flour, then cut off a 1-pound (grapefruit-sized) piece with a serrated knife. Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so it won’t stick to your hands. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on four “sides,” rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go, until the bottom is a collection of four bunched ends. Most of the dusting flour will fall off; it doesn’t need to be incorporated. The bottom of the loaf will flatten out during resting and baking.
6. Place the ball on the pizza peel. Let it rest uncovered for about 40 minutes. Depending on the dough’s age, you may see little rise during this period; more rising will occur during baking.
7. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat oven to 450 degrees with a baking stone on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on another shelf.
8. Dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour, which will allow the slashing, serrated knife to pass without sticking. Slash a 1⁄4-inch-deep cross, scallop or tick-tack-toe pattern into the top. (This helps the bread expand during baking.)
9. With a forward jerking motion of the wrist, slide the loaf off the pizza peel and onto the baking stone. Quickly but carefully pour about a cup of hot water into the broiler tray and close the oven door to trap the steam. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is browned and firm to the touch. With wet dough, there’s little risk of drying out the interior, despite the dark crust. When you remove the loaf from the oven, it will audibly crackle, or “sing,” when initially exposed to room temperature air. Allow to cool completely, preferably on a wire rack, for best flavor, texture and slicing. The perfect crust may initially soften, but will firm up again when cooled.
10. Refrigerate the remaining dough in your lidded (not airtight) container and use it over the next two weeks: You’ll find that even one day’s storage improves the flavor and texture of your bread. This maturation continues over the two-week period. Cut off and shape loaves as you need them. The dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in an airtight container and defrosted overnight in the refrigerator prior to baking day.
The Master Recipe: Boule
(Artisan Free-Form Loaf)
Makes 4 1-pound loaves
3 cups lukewarm water
1 1⁄2 tbsp granulated yeast (1 1⁄2 packets)
1 1⁄2 tbsp coarse kosher or sea salt
6 1⁄2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour
Cornmeal for pizza peel
Tips to Amaze Your Friends
The “6-3-3-13” rule. To store enough for eight loaves, remember 6-3-3-13. It’s 6 cups water, 3 tablespoons salt, 3 tablespoons yeast, and then add 13 cups of flour. It’ll amaze your friends when you do this in their homes without a recipe!
Lazy sourdough shortcut. When your dough container is empty, don’t wash it! Just scrape it down and incorporate it into the next batch. In addition to saving cleanup, the aged dough stuck to the sides will give your new batch a head start on sourdough flavor.
Variation: Herb Bread. Add a couple teaspoons of your favorite dried herbs (double if fresh) to the water mixture.
Here is the book this is from. I will see you tomorrow for the rest!
This is there book with many more bread recipes in case you are interested.
